I'll say it loud and clear . . . MERRY XMAS!

I've blurted out last December on the Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas and that included the use of Xmas.
Though this is mentioned in the linked post Christmas means "Christ's mass" with -mas meaning "holy day". X in Cyrillic and Greek make a 'kh' sound as in their words for Christ Христос and Χριστός.

What I didn't mention is why not have x as a variable? I mean not everyone celebrates Christmas in the sense that the cycle of Jesus being born only to die and resurrect 3 or 4 months later depending on when the first full moon occurs in spring or however Easter works.

Eastern Rite Christians celebrate Christmas in January as they follow the Julian calendar for their feast days.
There are also other Religious groups that may have their holidays around the same time though this is also dependent on how their calendar works.
Then there are those who are not religious at all who either take advantage of the holiday to spend time with loved ones or just treat the day as a normal day.

So why not Xmas? Set it up this way:
Xmas = 1 where x is whatever you want to put it.

but for those who can't stop ranting about how x is taking the Christ out of Christmas . . .
Xmas = 1 iff (if and only if) x is Christ

So go ahead and greet people Merry Xmas. I'm sure there are people sick of constantly seeing "He is the reason for the season" and whatever that goes around.

Holiday Stuff

Yes I said holiday and not Christmas. I'm not sure who is still sensitive to saying of "Happy Holiday" and "Seasons Greetings" versus "Merry/Happy Christmas" (depends of what English speaking country you come from) and possibly writing down the holiday as Xmas or saying it as "eks-mas" versus the whole word but it's not something to fuss about whether one is religious or not.

a little look at some of these words:

First: holiday. The word originally means "holy day" as in a day to celebrate religious festivities and nowadays it also applies to taking time of to either rest or when people are given some time off from school or work.

Christmas I believe is "Christ's mass" with the Old English suffix -mas meaning "a holy, sacred day"

Xmas is a shortening of Christmas and I can't remember where I've heard this but there's this idea of taking the "Christ" out of "Christ"mas with some people. First of all this is useful when one doesn't have a lost of space to write out Christmas and with texting messages to one another takes less time to punch in those letters. Secondly don't think of X as being said as X in English. You have Χριστός (Christos) in Greek and Христос (Xristos) in Cyrillic. Think of the X as coming from those (the X in Cyrillic makes a "kh" sound more or less) so if anyone really cares about this wrap your minds around this idea.


As for saying Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas: Happy Holidays speaks out to everyone while Merry Christmas seems to speak to a few. It's a personal choice whether to say one or the other (or whatever greeting one chooses) so don't take too much offence if you're religious and someone says Happy Holiday instead of Merry Christmas (same goes for a non-religious person when someone greets Merry Christmas or whatever).


Anyways so whatever you do around this time of the year stay safe and Merry/Happy <insert holiday here>


because I'm to lazy:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holiday
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Christmas
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Xmas

edited on December 23, 2010